Declassified Articles from the CIA Journal "Studies in Intelligence"

Approved for Release: 2014/09/10 C00863247.

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Charting a Technical Revolution

An Interview with Former DDS&T
Albert Wheelon (U)

Ed Dietel

Albert "Bud" Wheelon, 1966. (U)

44

Wheelon developed
three new satellite
systems that formed the
backbone of the Agency's
overhead program
for... decades. Perhaps

even more
extraordinary... [he] was
only 34 when he became
DDS&T.

99

Ed Dietel served in CIA's Office of
General Counsel.

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Editor's Note: Albert "Bud" Wheelon
only worked in CIA for four years,
first as Director of the Office of Sci-
entific Intelligence from 1962 to
1963, and then as Deputy Director
for Science and Technology
(DDS&T) from 1963 to 1966. Never-
theless, his contribution during that
period was so important to the
Agency's subsequent development
that he was named a Trailblazer
during CIA 's 50th Anniversary cele-
bration. Among his other
accomplishments, Wheelon con-
ceived and put into development
three new satellite systems that
formed the backbone of the
Agency's overhead program for the
next several decades. Perhaps even
more extraordinary is the fact that
Wheelon was only 34 when he
became DDS&T. (U//FOUO)

The son of an aeronautical engi-
neer, Wheelon grew up in los
Angeles and earned his B. Sc. from
Stanford in 1949, and his Ph.D. in
physics from MIT in 1952 at the age
of 23- He amazed his professors by
passing the two-day Ph.D. qualify-
ing exam soon after arriving at
MIT, despite the fact that he had not
taken many of the courses ordi-
narily needed to prepare a graduate
student for the grueling exam.
Wheelon was not without outside
interests. He first got to know MIT's '.
influential President, James Kil-
lian, by working with him to form a
rugby football club, which is still a
part of student life there after
50 years. (U//FOUO)

In the following interview excerpts,
Wheelon discusses his early work on
ICBM guidance systems for the Air
Force! (b)(1)

CIA 's role in satellite reconnais-
sance in the 1960s, and the three
new overhead systems he set into
motion while DDS&T. (S//NF)

Ed Dietel of the CIA History Staffs
oral history program interviewed
Dr. Wheelon on 17 October 1998,
in the latter's home in Santa Bar-
bara, California. (U//FOUO)

Shortly after graduating from MIT,
Wheelon joined the newly created
Ramo-Wooldridge Corporation, a
high technology firm in Los Angeles
founded by Simon Ramo and Dean
Wooldridge. (Ramo-Wooldridge
merged with Thompson Products in
1958 and renamed itself TRW in
1965.) The Air Force's advisory "Tea
Pot Committee" of prominent scien-
tists and engineers called for a
crash program to develop an ICBM
in 1954, and the Air Force
responded by creating the Air Force
Western Development Division
(WDD) in Inglewood, California,
under Brig. Gen. Bernard Schriever.
WDD, in turn, employed Ramo-
Wooldridge to provide systems engi-
neering and technical direction for
the entire project. (U//FOUO)

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DDS&T Wheelon

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When I went to work for Ramo-
Wooldridge, their only job was to
support the Tea Pot Committee,
which was chaired by [former AEC
commissioner and world-renowned
mathematician] John von Neu-
mann. It also' included Prof. Clarke
Millikan of Cal Tech, Ramo and
Wooldridge, Charles Lindbergh,
Jimmy Doolittle, [MIT professor
and, later, Special Assistant to Presi-
dent Kennedy for Science and
Technology Jerome] "Jerry"
Wiesner, and [Hughes Aircraft Gen-
eral Manager and member of
President Eisenhower's Scientific
Advisory Committee Laurence] "Pat"
Hyland. A breakthrough in the
H-bomb design had just taken
place, and so they were chartered
to rethink the ballistic missile pro-
gram that would carry such
weapons. This was von Neumann's
charge. The committee was all very
top secret, but it needed some staff
work done. I was the only one
available. It was like being the only
graduate student with 10 full pro-
fessors, with each one giving me an
assignment once a day, and then I
would work all night trying to get
the answers. It was a lot of fun, and
I learned a lot. I also got to know
these people. To be in on that
activity from the first day was really
exciting, although I was just out of
school, and they were all quite
senior. (U//FOUO)

Talk about youthful hubris! I
worked for the Tea Pot Committee
for about a week, and then got my
clearance. I asked, "Okay, what's
the job around here?" Wooldridge
answered, "We are going to build
a missile that's going to go
5,000 miles, and it is going to hit
within a mile of the target." I was

so inexperienced and optimistic I
said, "That's a good idea, let's get
started." I had no real idea how
hard it would prove to be.
(U//FOUO)

I spent nine years working on the
long-range missile project. It began
in a clandestine way and was actu-
ally run out of a former Catholic
school in Inglewood. Closed by the
diocese, the school was rented by
the Air Force, and about 20 of us
started Atlas, Titan, and Thor pro-
grams there. Jim Fletcher, who was
twice the head of NASA, was my
boss. I worked on guidance sys-
tems and tried to understand how
to guide long-range rockets. I made
some fundamental contributions,
and I still get requests for the work
I did during that period.
(U//FOUO)

There were two main efforts to
build ballistic missiles, and they
were competitive. The Army's at
Huntsville, using the German group
out of Peenemunde around von
Braun, and the Air Force effort to
make long-range rockets under Ben
Schriever, with Wooldridge and
Ramo as architectural advisers. The
factories that built components
were all over the country for both
teams, but those were the two cen-
ters. The Navy later got into the
business with the submarine-
launched Polaris, Poseidon, and
Trident missiles. The Air Force
long-range missile program was
centered in Inglewood right by the
airport. I was one of the foot sol-
diers in that operation.
Occasionally, I would brief the von
Neumann group, because of the
work I was doing. (U//FOUO)

First Contact with the CIA (U)

My connection to the Intelligence
Community (IC) began in 1957 and
was the result of improbable coinci-
dence. We had worked hard since
November 1953 trying to make our
missiles work. For several years, it
had not been going well because
we had not yet learned how to
build long-range rockets. Although
I was far from an executive during
this time, my visibility was a little
higher than one might have
expected. (U//FOUO)

CIA had been running U-2 mis-
sions since 1956, but I had no
inkling of that program. At that
time, photo interpreters were pri-
marily converted forestry majors
from college and had little techni-
cal experience outside of
photogrammetry. Someone finally
went to [DCI Allen] Dulles and
[DDCI and Air Force General
Charles] Cabell and said, "Look, we
are running these incredible risks to
fly these missions, and yet we are
not getting much in the way of
technical information." They argued
that "We simply must get some
people who are building our own
missiles to come in and look at this
material." Dulles agreed, and they
formed JAM SESSION in Septem-
ber 1957, working at the Steuart
Building, downtown at the old
National Photographic Interpreta-
tion Center (NPIC).1 (U//FOUO)

1 JAM SESSION invited 26 US experts on
nuclear and missile technology to Wash-
ington to work alongside Agency photo in-
terpreters for three weeks to maximize
exploitation of U-2 photography on the
Soviet nuclear and ICBM programs.
(U/FOUO)

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DDS&TWheelon

44

Schriever's ICBM group on the West
Coast was asked to send some-
body. As they always do, they
selected two fellows who were
senior but who ran into some sort
of difficulty on the way to Washing-
ton. At the last minute, I was
selected and went to Washington. I
had no idea what I was getting into
until somebody handed me a brief-
ing form for TALENT KEYHOLE
and other materials. I was sud-
denly parachuted into the
wonderful world of NPIC. They
also gave us access to COMINT and
the telemetry data, which they did
not know what to do with either,
by the way. So it was purely acci-
dental that I became involved in
intelligence activities. | (b)(3)(c)

"Well," I thought, "thank heaven
the government has the wit and the
courage to create a U-2 program
and is willing to run these risks." I
kind of knew where we were in
the missile business, and was
amazed at how far along the Sovi-
ets were. It looked to me like we
were in a real horse race. It also
seemed to me that there was a lot
of good information that needed
analysis. A lot of good data was
being taken, and not much was
happening to it. Everybody is kind
of a photo interpreter, and you
know what it means if you have
got the background. It is like read-
ing X-rays. If someone has looked
at lots of cases of lung cancer, he
can spot it pretty accurately. My
sense was that a lot more could be
done with the telemetry data that
was being gathered. It was a gold

I kind of knew where we
were in the missile
business, and was

amazed at how far along
the Soviets were. It
looked to me like we

were in a real horse race.

99

mine waiting to be developed, and
it seemed to me that a real
contribution could be made in that
area. (C)

I thought the people at NPIC and
CIA were terrific. The dedication
and the commitment of the career
intelligence officers were quite
remarkable. It occurred to me that
doing intelligence analysis was a lot
like doing crossword puzzles. It is
also the closest thing to doing
physics that I have ever found,
which is probably why I was
attracted to it. Let me explain how
physics is done. You do an experi-
ment and get a result. You usually
do not understand it completely.
You think a little bit and generate
an explanation for the data. You go
back and forth between theory and
experiment to do physics. It
seemed to me that the intelligence
business was just the same. You
have a lot of incomplete experi-
mental data. One has to work with
only a small fraction of the puzzle
pieces and try to establish a
hypothesis that could explain the
data at hand. This model usually
makes other predictions which can
be compared against other data and
suggest further collection efforts.

The intellectual challenge is the
same as doing science. (U//FOUO).

The Soviet Missile Telemetry
Puzzle (U)

We all worked hard at the Steuart
building for a month, and then I
went back to Los Angeles.
Schriever and Ramo asked me
about this experience. I responded
that, "I thought we did some good.
We lifted up the tent flap and saw
what was inside. There is a lot
more that can be done there, but
that is not our job." But Schriever
picked up on this. He had been
part of the U-2 development and
had a keen interest in reconnais-
sance. Schriever said, "That was a
good effort, but we ought to keep
this going." He arranged to have
the Air Technical Center at Wright-
Patterson Air Force Base create an
intelligence cell at BMD, Ballistic
Missile Division [as the Air Force's
Western Development Division was
now named]. They assigned a
project officer, a communications
person, and security guy full time
to us. Ramo directed me to find
good people in our organization to
become cleared. When we started
working on the data, it was really a
continuation of JAM ^SESSION on
the West Coast, and we called it
WESTWING. We had the U-2 pho-
tography and some COMINT. One

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DDS&T Wheelon

(b)(1 )3->ften we did not know the
collection site, but it did not mat-
ter. What was \

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Much to its credit, NSA [with the Air
Force and the Army Assistant Chief
of Staff for Intelligence] organized a
community effort to solve this
problem in 1958, drawing largely
from nongovernmental groups. This
led to the establishment of TEBAC
[Telemetry and Beacon Analysis
Committee] in I960. It was then
that I first worked with [future Sec-
retary of Defense William] Perry.
Actually, we had been classmates in
school at Stanford, but we met in
this business when Bill was at Elec-
tronic Defense Labs. Future DDS&T
Carl Duckett was involved down at
Huntsville and had been part of the
JAM SESSION operation. This group
met every three months and pro-
vided an important clearinghouse
for new results and difficult prob-
lems

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44

Often we did not know
the collection site, but it
did not matter. What was

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community effort, like doing a fam-
ily crossword puzzle at
Thanksgiving. Gradually, we got all

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It was a

I still had another job at TRW
designing guidance systems for the
missile program, and we started the
Minuteman program in I960. And I
had a larger hand in that program
than just guidance. I might add that
I had no relationship to the
CORONA [satellite reconnaissance]
program during this period. I was
just working on the missile pro-
grams; only a few people were
involved in CORONA. (U//FOUO)

CIA and TRW (U)

Our relationship with this group at
Wright Field was not going well for
several reasons. They felt that our
work should not be distributed if it
did not support the Air Force posi-
tion in USIB [the United States
Intelligence Board]. They felt that
our job was to support their policy
positions and not to do research.
They refused to circulate work that
we did that did not agree with their
official position, whatever it might
be. (U//FOUO)

There was an important debate
going on at that time, as to whether

(b)(1)

| but

the Air Force position was that it
was large, perhaps because they
wanted to build MX. So they sup-
pressed our results. Finally [Ruben]
"Rue" Mettler [director of Space
Technology Laboratories, a Ramo-
Wooldridge subsidiary] and I and
Jimmy Doolittle — who was then
involved — said "We just cannot go
on like this. We are not here as part
of a propaganda machine; we are
here doing serious analysis. Our
standards and theirs just are not the
same." TRW withdrew from the
program, and that was difficult.
Mettler and I put our important
relationship with the Air Force on
the line and lost some friends in
the process.

(b)(3)(c)

Director of the Office of Scientific
Intelligence (OSI) Herbert "Pete"
Scoville and Deputy Director for
Intelligence (DDI) Robert Amory
had known of our work and
stepped in. They said, "We will

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sponsor your analytic effort as a
service of common concern for the
Community." We had to think hard
about that because our primary
customer was the Air Force. It
seemed to us that CIA understood
what the problem was. They
offered, "Look, we will publish
your work, whether it agrees with
our position or not. We will simply
fan it out to the Community for
whatever constructive purpose that
serves. We will try to get you the
raw data. All we ask is that you
have integrity in the research you
do." That sounded pretty good. It
was also clear to us that they had a
good deal more influence in terms
of getting us data than the Air
Force had, or were at least pre-
pared to try a lot harder. So, in the
summer of I960, we started. This
effort became Project EARSHOT, an
OSI project that became a Commu-
nity asset. (S//NF)

There was another issue for the
analytic effort that we had been
fighting and losing. NSA had been
collecting data but did not know
what to do with all the informa-
tion. We learned that it was sitting
in a vault at NSA

Well, Scoville solved this problem
almost immediately when EAR-
SHOT began. Pretty soon we could

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photography. It was an exciting
enterprise and did a lot of good for
the estimates. (S//NF)

Joining the CIA (U)

When Wheelon agreed to join the
Agency in 1962, he did so with the
understanding that it would be for
at least three but not more than
four years. (U//FOUO)

I still had a job to do at TRW. I was
by now director of the Radio Phys-
ics Lab, but my heart was really in
this intelligence analysis. When
Pete Scoville moved up to become
Deputy Director for Research, he
and Bob Amory approached me,
saying "Will you come back and fill
in for Scoville?" This was in Febru-
ary 1962, and I thought about it
hard and finally said, "Okay, I'll do
it." I had missed World War II and
Korea. World War II because I was
too young — 16 when it was over.
During the Korean War, I was a
graduate student at MIT. I went
down at my own expense to Wash-
ington to volunteer for the Air
Force. MIT President Killian and
others in the physics department
found out about it. They said "This
country needs nuclear physicists,
not second lieutenants in the Air
Force." They called their friends in
Washington and killed it. They

were probably right, but I had not .
served in the military. I thought, . 5
"Well, it is my time to go."
(U//FOUO)

I was awfully young — just 33 at the
time. I was also pretty brash. Peo-
ple at CIA knew of the work that I
had done before coming, so they
were accepting. I believe they were
also a little concerned that I might
make unaccustomed demands. A
mixture of applause and apprehen-
sion marked my arrival. Others in
the Directorate of Intelligence were
very welcoming. Paul Borel [Direc-
tor, Office of Central Reference] and
Otto Guthe [Director, Office of
Research and Reports] and Jack
Smith [Director, Office of Current
Intelligence] were saying, "Good,
got a real scientist around here, a
real technologist." They saw it as
strengthening the intellectual capi-
tal of the Agency. For the people
within OSI, it was a time of adjust-
ment. Pete [Scoville] was a
comfortable person. They knew
him well and enjoyed a warm rela-
tionship with him. By contrast, they
had none with me. So that was dif-
ferent. Several of them thought they
might have succeeded Pete.
(U//FOUO)

The biggest problern^was that I had
been told that OS^ would go with
Scoville to the Directorate for
Research [which was renamed the
Directorate of Science and Technol-
ogy in August 1963]- That was my
understanding when I accepted the
job. I arrived in Washington to find
that Ray Cline had replaced Amory
as DDI and was successfully insist-
ing that OSI not be moved. I
suddenly found myself working for
a man I had never met and, frankly,

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44

I did not much care for. I admired
his intellectual gifts, and he worked
hard. On the other hand, he felt
that analysts are fungible and that
an economist could do just as well
on a scientific problem as a scien-
tist. He may havatbeen right, but
that was not my belief. Had I
known that this was the situation, I
certainly would not have joined the
CIA. (U//FOUO)

All of a sudden, I had transported
my family across the country, taken
a big pay cut, folded up my house
in California, and rented a place in
Washington, and I was working for
a man who really did not under-
stand what I was trying to do.
Instead of working for Scoville,
who understood perfectly and
would provide support, I needed to
persuade a stranger that what I was
doing was worthwhile. (U//FOUO)

In addition, OSI was a little edgy
with a new, young director. There
was obviously a lot of talent in the
office, not all of which was being
used effectively. Future DDI Sayre
Stevens was a good example.
When I arrived, I asked him, "What
are you working on, Sayre?" He
responded, "Soviet windmills." I
said, "You must be kidding." He
said, "No, this is my assignment." I
said, "Look, there is a real job to be
done around here. We have to start
doing it." Future DDS&T Les Dirks
was a Rhodes Scholar and a MIT-
educated physicist. He was quite
.young but obviously talented, and I
soon found important things for
him to do. (U//FOUO)

I went around re-aiming people.
That irritated some folks, but I felt
that we had a lot of important

I went around re-aiming

people. That irritated
some folks [at CIA], but I
, felt that we had a lot of
important problems to
solve.

problems to solve. I felt that the
EARSHOT group I had left on the
West Coast was going pretty well in
the missile area but that we needed
to generate similar activities draw-
ing in national expertise and close-
couple it with the Agency, rather
than occasionally interviewing peo-
ple. I went to the Livermore
Laboratory of the AEC and set up a
project to evaluate Soviet and Chi-
nese nuclear weapons activities. We
set up a similar nroiect at Sandia.
(b)(1 )

There was a pattern then

of trying to augment the indige-
nous CIA capabilities with outside
expertise. I believe that went okay.
It seemed to go well and did not
crowd the old hands in OSI.
(S//NF)

Still, someone from the [Office of]
the Inspector General (IG) showed
up to interview me. He said in
essence, "We have got some
unhappy campers in OSI. What do
you have to say?" I responded,
"Well, I guess you are probably
right. There is a land shift going on
here." Inevitably, some people feel
discomfited, but I was hired to
accelerate this activity and make it
more relevant, and OSI under me
was nowhere as comfortable as it
had been under Pete. It was also
doing a lot more intelligence analy-
sis and doing it better. (U//FOUO)

The Cuban Missile Crisis (U)

I worked long hours during my first
summer at CIA. I was there until
about 10 p.m. almost every night.
My wife and kids were still on the
West Coast, because we could not
sell our house, and I was living at
Howard Roman's house while he
and his family were away. I did not
have much to do at night, so I
started reading clandestine reports,
which I had never seen before.
Although many were uninteresting
for our work, I became convinced
during those summer months that
something was going on in Cuba.
There was one report that really
caught my attention, but the sheer
number of reports indicating mis-
sile deployment on the island
bothered me. (U//FOUO)

An estimate underway by Sherman
Kent's Board of National Estimates
was addressing the question: Will
the Russians put missiles in Cuba?
The estimate was clearly coming
down on the side that they would
not. That was the signal that Presi-
dent Kennedy hoped to hear from
the Agency. DCI John McCone was
getting married again after losing
his wife during his first year, and he
was out of action. He had dis-
agreed with this approach, but he
was not around to enforce his
view. DDCI [and Army Lt. Gen.]
Marshall Carter was left to deal with
whatever came up. The estimate
was rolling forward on this basis. I
was reading the clandestine reports,
but I was not central to estimates
on Soviet intentions. Nonetheless, I
went to Kent and had a long dis-
cussion. I said, "Sherm, look, I am
new around here, so you should
discount a lot of what I say. I am

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not a professional intelligence per-
son, but it looks to me like the
evidence is overwhelming that they
have missiles down there." It was
late, but we talked for several
hours. Finally, he said, "I respect
your view, but this is the way we
are going." (U//FOUO)

(bKI) I

It said that they

were moving large, trailered loads
at night. These loads were so long
that they could not make the cor-
ners and had to remove the corner
mailboxes that are used in Cuba
and other countries. The report said
that they had to cut the posts down
to get the trucks around the cor-
ners. I thought to myself, "People
do not make that up, it must be
real." I then concluded, "If he has
got that part right, he has probably
got the rest of it right. It looks to
me like they are putting missiles in
there." I mentioned my concern to
Carter, "I think we are heading
down the wrong track on this esti-
mate, but I am pretty new around
here." We actually had a debate in
the Guided Missiles and Astronau-
tics Intelligence Committee, where I
was chairman, but I was alone in
my view on Cuba. Sidney Graybeal
was the Agency rep and he argued
against me, taking Kent's line. He
said, "Oh, you can't believe those
clandestine reports anyway." I had
brought the reports with me. I said,
"It looks to me like they are put-
ting in missiles," but everybody
hooted me down. I said, "Okay, I
am just the chairman." (S)

When it was over, McCone invited
me to his office and said, "You and

44

I had brought the reports
[on Cuba] with me. I said,
'It looks to me like they
are putting in missiles,'
but everybody hooted me
down.

99

I were the only ones that got that
one right. I will tell you how I got
my answer, if you will tell me how
you got yours." I told him the story
I just told you, and he told me his
version. He explained his view:
"They put SA-2s in Cuba first to
keep us from learning about some-
thing important. The only thing that
important was nuclear rockets." We
had quite a conversation at that
time, and I believe he judged that I
was prepared to take an unpopu-
lar position. I believe he liked that
in me. (U//FOUO)

Following the missile crisis, another
fellow from the IG staff came to see
me. In essence, he was there to
scold me, saying "How come you
broke ranks with the DDI and the
Office of National Estimates? How
come you went against the grain?" I
said, "You ought to be glad that
somebody around here is yelling
fire when there is a fire going on.
You have got a nerve coming into
my office and trying to brace me
with an organizational loyalty issue.
Where do you get off?" He was
stunned, and left. There was the
fraternal, go along, get along atti-
tude in many parts of CIA.
(U//FOUO)

Taking Over the S&T (U)

Pete Scoville resigned from the
Agency in 1963- He had become

frustrated with what he perceived
was lack of support from DCI
McCone for his agenda in the Direc-
torate for Research . In addition to
impressing McCone during the
Cuban missile crisis, Wheelon had
the backing of James Killian and
Jerome Wiesner. One of Wheelon's
first acts as DDS&Twas to urge
McCone to reverse the erosion of
CIA 's responsibilities for overhead
systems, which had been losing
influence since the foundation of
the National Reconnaissance Office
in 1961. (U//FOUO)

I made the following case to
McCone, "There are a number of
important things in this Agency.
Killian and Land have urged you to
build up the technical capabilities
of the Agency. Of those activities,
the most important thing is over-
head reconnaissance. In my view,
only that collection technique can
really answer the tough questions
we face. We need to do more and
better reconnaissance. And there is
a lot more that can and should be
done. CORONA only scratches the
surface, and we cannot use the SR-
71 [the supersonic spyplane, also
known as the Blackbird] and the
U-2 over the Soviet Union because
of the Eisenhower commitment.
Satellites are not only \the best way,
they are the only way we are going
to get those answers." (U//FOUO)

I expressed my belief that, "The
Pentagon — not necessarily the Air
Force — trie Pentagon wants to take
over this activity. They want the
Agency out of it. Secretary of
Defense Robert McNamara has
made that plain to you. He sees the
Agency as a hobby shop doing
some R&D and generating

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64

requirements." McNamara 'had told
McCone that is how he saw the
Agency role, so there was no dis-
pute about that. (U//FOUO)

The Pentagon's, OAvri space pro-
grams were not going well. They
had just canceled the ADVENT
communications satellite program.
They had also canceled the SAMOS
reconnaissance satellite program.
By contrast, CORONA was going
well, and space was becoming a
big thing. From McNamara's point
of view, he was working hard to
consolidate space activities under
the Air Force. The other services
kept saying, "How do you recon-
cile that edict with CIA programs?" I
think he saw the CIA role as an
untidy arrangement. He and
McCone differed on Vietnam. I also
believe that McNamara was the
consummate empire builder. He
believed in tidy government, and
found this collaborative arrange-
ment between the Agency and the
Air Force as silly. Perhaps it had
made sense originally, but it no
longer did, now that he was there
and doing things properly. Assis-
tant Secretary of Defense for
Research and Engineering Eugene
Fubini aided and abetted that view,
as did future Secretary of Defense
Harold Brown. (U//FOUO)

Back to my conversation with
McCone. I said, "When you get
right down to it, the NRO is really a
post office box for the Air Force.
The only capability that the NRO
has is the Air Force, and they in
turn rely on industry. I know how
that system works. The question
before the country is simple: "Do
we want to go to a sole-source
arrangement and grant an

I said [to DCI McCone,] 'I

believe that strategic
reconnaissance is even
more important than
nuclear weapons right
now. To turn this thing
over as an exclusive
franchise to the weak
player is a disservice to
the country.'

exclusive franchise for reconnais-
sance to the Air Force? Or do we
want to have competing activities?
The fact is that the Air Force has
done a miserable job with its own
space programs. SAMOS has been
an unqualified disaster. By con-
trast, the Agency's program in this
area has been an unqualified suc-
cess." (U//FOUO)

Then I reminded McCone, "When
you were head of the AEC, the Air
Force approached you and said that
the people at Los Alamos are fight-
ing the development of
thermonuclear weapons. We need
them." So you created Livermore
out of whole cloth. Lawrence,
Teller, Herb York, Johnny Foster,
and Harold Brown got some pluto-
nium and started designing
weapons in Pleasanton, California.
All of a sudden, Los Alamos was
bringing out new designs, and
things started to move. I said, "You
went along with that decision. I
believe that strategic reconnais-
sance is even more important than
nuclear weapons right now. I
believe that, for the good of the
country, to turn this thing over as
an exclusive franchise to the weak
player is a disservice to the coun-
try. 'I believe that we should be

willing to bear the burden of
untidiness and duplication in the
government in return for getting
good reconnaissance. You can
decide it either way. If you decide
that you want the benefits of com-
petition and want to keep the
Agency in this business, then you
will have to do things entirely dif-
ferently. The course that you have
followed so far has been facilitat-
ing this drift toward an exclusive
dependence on the Air Force."
(U//FOUO)

I did not frame it, "You have to do
this, if I am going to do that." I
said, "This is the national policy
issue." I said, "If you come to the
belief that the country needs two
[programs], and you want to keep
the Agency in, and you are willing
to commit every bit of your pres-
tige and energy to that end, then I
will help you. I believe I can do the
technical part. But you must reverse
course and run the risk of sacrific-
ing your prestige on this altar."
(U//FOUO)

I believe my argument was also
that the Air Force inevitably is
going to come up with other solu-
tions that are tailored to its needs —
not national needs. I said, "The Air
Force cares about the country, but
they fundamentally have a differ-
ent job. Therefore, somebody has
got to worry about what the Presi-
dent needs before the war starts,
and that is our job. And we need a
different mechanism that is tuned
differently, that is aimed differ-
ently, that is motivated differently
to do that job. And the Agency
three times now has shown it can
do it— U-2, SR-71, and CORONA. It
is likely to keep on doing it unless

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the flame is snuffed out, and we
are at the eve of snuffing out that
flame, Mr. McCone. Scoville's resig-
nation forces that issue on you.
What role do you want the Agency
to play? I believe you must make
up your mind. What is good for the
country here? I will go along with
whatever you say." I did not
threaten to quit; there was none of
that. But I said, "The most impor-
tant thing this Directorate can do is
to support a continuing reconnais-
sance program. If you do not want
to do that, then you have to think
long and hard about what you do
want the Directorate to do, and
then we will talk further. But the
first issue and the one that really
matters, is, what about reconnais-
sance? What about reconnaissance,
Mr. McCone?" (U//FOUO)

He was persuaded by those words,
and said, "I will throw myself into
this battle." His last words at the
Agency, on the last morning he was
there at the morning meeting, were,
"I want to apologize to you folks
for not having done more to fix the
NRO problem." I believe that that
was the burden on his heart as he
left. (U//FOUO)

Developing New Overhead
Systems (U)

Let's talk about three systems, each
of which originated in my first six
months on the job as DDS&T. This
began in July of 1963. Hughes had
been working with NASA and DoD
to put Syncom-II into a stationary,
geosynchronous orbit. When I read
on the front page of The Herald
Tribune that they had succeeded, I
thought, "This has a lot to do with

our business. For a first time, we

~~ (b)(1)
(b)(3)(c)

There were a good many technical
questions that had to be answered.
One was the antenna design.
[Future Associate DDS&T] Lloyd
Lauderdale gets a lot of the credit

_(b)(1)

1 1 will never forget

the day when they finally came in
with a model and manually
cranked it up — the thing actually
deployed. I said, "Come on, let's go
up and see McCone." We showed it
to him, and he agreed to go for-
ward. (S//NF)

The second problem posed a far
more subtle question. If you stand
on a high place, you will hear
everything in addition to what you
are looking for. The question is,
would the other transmitters that
we were not interested in swamp
out what we were interested in? In

(b)(1)

|it was a go/ no go
question. We gave that job to Bill
Perry, who had just left EDL to set
up his own company in Palo Alto. I
went to Bill, for whom I had a high
regard, and said, "The key ques-
tion in this new project is whether
or not we can do this. Will you
please go off to one side and work
with NSA to see what the back-
ground data look like. Please tell us
whether we are on the right track?
There is no point building this sys-
tem and having it be a flop." After
about six months, Perry took us
through it all and the answer was

yes, we could make it work. On
that basis we proceeded.
(S//NF)

The second system was generated
by a need that came out of my
Cuban missile experience. We
needed to build a system that could
provide pictures in near real time.
On one of my few days off, I was
watching a professional football
game from San Francisco. I
remarked, "If I can watch a foot-
ball game from San Francisco, we
can get pictures back from the sat-
ellite! Technology has come along
sufficiently to do so." I put Dirks to
work on that with the mandate "to
build a near real-time system and
bring photography into the current
intelligence arena." (S//NF)

Dave Packard took it upon himself
to come around and talk to people
who were to be involved in the
project when he was Deputy Secre-
tary of Defense. He came to see
me, and he asked me what assur-
ance could I give him that we
could do our part. I was able to say
that we could do our task with con-
fidence. This depended on building
a new and much more capable
traveling wave tube. This program
was primarily Dirks^s^ success,
although Duckett and Helms
deserve much credit for pushing it
along. (S//NF)

System number three was a
CORONA improvement, which is to
say a new broad-research system.
CORONA was having some trou-
bles, and we got [Stanford Professor
Sidney] Drell and his group to
come in and take a look. We finally
solved the problem. (S//NF)

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Independent of that problem, it
was clear that the photointerpret-
ers were having trouble finding
some facilities in the miles of 70mm
film that we were bringing back
[from CORONA^ missions]. I went to
NPIC head Art Lundahl and I said,
"Art, what is the problem? Do we
need to give you better resolu-
tion?" He said, "I think so." We
decided to do some experiments.
We took some high-resolution
SR-71 pictures and degraded them
to various levels. We gave these
pictures to the photointerpreters
and found out how many times
they got the right answer as a func-
tion of what the resolution was.
They evidently needed something a
good deal better than CORONA
was then delivering to make a sig-
nificant improvement in their
performance as photointerpreters —
who I figured were my consumers,
even though they did not work for
me. (S//NF)

Because the Drell panel was then
meeting, I asked, "How hard can
we push CORONA by the product
improvements that we have been
making?" The same answer came
back from our own people, from
Itek [which built the CORONA cam-
era], and from the Drell group —
that we had pushed CORONA
about as far as we could. It has a
focal length that could not be
changed. The film is what it is. To
build a high-resolution search sys-
tem, we would simply have to start
over. I believe I talked that over
with [Polaroid Corporation Presi-
dent and member of President
Johnson's Science Advisory Com-
mittee Edwin] Land, and he
agreed.2 1 got chief of the Special
Projects Staff Jackson Maxey and

future chief of the Office of Special
Projects John Crowley involved in
this. I said, "How do we build a
search system, same coverage, but
with a lot better resolution?"
(S//NF)

That began the search for a new
search system. Our first move was
to place a contract with Itek, to see
if they could design a new system.
They worked under our funding for
most of 1964, trying to develop a
follow-on to CORONA that would
have the improved performance.
(U//FOUO)

The relationship with Itek was a
rocky one. One, they were not
making much headway. Two, Jack
Maxey was a strong-willed man,
and I believe he tended to give
them a good deal more direction
than they felt they needed. Behind
the scenes, Fubini had approached
Itek and said, "Look, CIA is not
going to build satellite systems any
more. You are wasting your time. If
you jump ship with the Agency and
work with us, we will make sure
you are the contractor for an Air
Force-sponsored system like this."3
(U//FOUO)

During a meeting of the Land Panel
of the President's Science Advisory
Committee, Land was called out of
the meeting. He came back about a

2 Land chaired the "Land Panel" of the
President's Science Advisory Committee.
The panel had as its responsibility over-
sight of the country's satellite reconnais-
sance program. (U//FOUO)

3 According to NRO's historian, Dr.

- Wheelon's recollection of events in Itek's
withdrawal from the NRO/CIA follow-on
imaging system is not shared by company
executives, who fault business practices in
connection with the contract. (U)

half hour later and said, "I have to
tell you that Itek no longer wants to
participate with the Agency on the
Advanced Search System, they want
to have the contract terminated and
cease work." We were dumb-
founded. It was like the day
Kennedy was shot; everyone
remembers where they were. I
asked Land if they had given any
reason but he said, "No, not really,
they just want out." It was not clear
whether it was a technical problem
or in the management capability,
but they wanted out. (U//FOUO)

[Franklin] "Frank" Lindsay [Itek's
president], who had once been at
the Agency, said, "We have got a
mess here that I need to straighten
out." So he came down to have
lunch with McCone and me.
McCone was a lot rougher than we
thought. Lindsay gave an explana-
tion that did not make any sense at
all. About the best he could say
was that the working relationship
had a lot of friction. I had not been
working with them, so it was not
an attack on me, but he said the
people who work for Wheelon
were tough to get along with.
McCone did not buy it at all, and
Lindsay was ushered out of the
lunch without having his hand
shaken. (U//FOUO)

I said, "Mr. McCone, I believe we
have to take this seriously. It may
be that, unbeknownst to me, our
people are heavy-handed. They
have a lot of other contractors in
various parts of this. With your per-
mission, I would like to go around
and check on them and see if there
has been any trace of this else-
where." He said, "I believe that is
exactly right, you go and check." I

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44

started going around to all the con-
tractors that worked for the Agency.
I found that, whatever the merits of
the Itek problem, no one else was
experiencing it.
(U//FOUO)

I came back and gave my report,
and I said, "It looks to me like this
is an Itek-specific problem." It is
clear that they had been under a lot
of pressure. Under Secretary of the
Air Force and NRO Director Brock-
way McMillan had made it
absolutely clear that McNamara did
not want the Agency developing
new systems. The only question
was, had they pulled the trigger or
had Itek sensed where their best
interests lay? (U//FOUO)

Meanwhile, with Itek out of it, the
need remained. Dirks, Lauderdale,
and I began to think about it. The
reason for starting this system was
not a desire to build a new system
but to meet a need. We were work-
ing with Perkin-Elmer at the time
on the SR-71 camera, and I asked
them if they had any ideas. They
said, "Coincidentally, we have an
invention in the lab, which might
be of interest to you." So with that,
we began to work with Perkin-
Elmer. (S//NF)

Some Observations on DCI John
McCone (U)

(b)(1)

John McCone walked in,
looked around the room
with those blue eyes and
said 'Who authorized that
mission?' I made a quick
calculation to myself that
'...today is as good a day
as any to quit this outfit.'

"(b)(1)"

John McCone was an aloof guy. I
believe he had the finest mind of
anyone I have ever worked for. He
was an excellent analyst. He had an
incredible memory, and was intel-
lectually tough and honest. Having
said that, I will tell you that he was
not a good manager of people. He
was billed as a manager, but had
no sense of how to motivate an
organization. (U//FOUO)

The U-2 missionQ(b)(1 ) fivas a
high-priority effort. When they put
pressure on me to plan it, I had
counseled McCone and Kennedy
that it was a long way in, and I was
not sure we could make it. Air
Force Brigadier General and Direc-
tor, Office of Special Activities, Jack
Ledford and I were at a Christmas
party at McCone's house on a
snowy night. McCone dragged us
into his study to say, "I just want to
reiterate to you two how important
this thing is." I responded, "I know
that, and I want to reiterate to you
that it is a long way in, and I am
not sure we are going to make it."
The Taiwanese U-2 pilot was about

ready to take off. I had been asleep
for about three hours, and the
phone rings. It is the Ops Center in
OSA [Office of Special Activities],
and this plane has been shot down
going in. I joined Ledford and the
Ops people in our control center.

(b)(1)

As usual, I went to the morning
meeting and asked Ledford to come
with me. John McCone walked in
and looked around the room with
those blue eyes of his and said,
"Who authorized that mission?" I
made a quick calculation. I said [to
myself], "Well, today is as good a
day as any to quit this outfit." I
responded, "I have a piece of paper
with your signature, and Mac
Bundy's, and Bob McNamara's, and
Dean Rusk's, on it telling me to do
it." DDCI Carter said, "That's right,
sir, you ordered that mission." One
could have heard a pin drop in that
room. McCone closed his book, got
up, and left the room. The subject
was never mentioned again. Do not
ask me, I cannot explain it. He was
a great director, but he had a few
little shortcomings heje and there.
(U//FOUO)

Most people were scared to death
of John McCone, but I was not —
perhaps because I was not trying to
build a career in CIA. I will tell you
this story. Helms and I ran a(b)(1 )
H operation in Cuba as part
of the MONGOOSE program to
destabilize the Castro regime. I was
involved in it because of some
technical things we were doing. It

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was a mess, with high-speed boats
firing .50-caliber guns. And one of
John McCone's J.P. Hendy freight-
ers sailed right into the middle of
this. It was shot up by being in the
wrong place at the wrong time. The
next day; McGone got Helms and
me in his office to say, "You guys
almost sunk my ship yesterday
down there." I looked at Helms,
who was senior to me by quite a
bit, and I thought, "He knows how
to handle these things." Helms did
not say a word. So, finally, I said to
myself, "Well, it is another good
day to quit." I said, "Mr. McCone,
you knew that operation was going
down. A lot of good men got killed
down there yesterday. It is up to
you to keep your ship out of the
way." McCone said, "I guess you
are right," and that was the end of
it. (U//FOUO)

I do not mean to paint myself as a
hero; it is just that on a number of
occasions I stood up to McCone on
a matter of principle. I thought it
was important, and I believe he
responded well to that. But I did
not see anybody else doing it. I
believe that people more directly
involved were just intimidated by
him, his wealth, and the fact that he
was all business. I was young and
brash. (U//FOUO)

On Cooperation (U)

Why is it that people like [IBM
physicist and longtime government
consultant Richard] Garwin, and
Perry, and I spent so much of our
life working for the government
instead of doing science? You learn
physics like you learn to be a sil-
versmith: through the apprentice

process. You cannot read a book
and become a physicist; you have
to work with a physicist. Our con-
tact with our professors was a
feature in our maturing, in our
becoming physicists. (U//FOUO)

Many of the faculty at MIT had
been deeply involved in World War
II, and they continued to serve the
government after the war. They
were much in demand in Washing-
ton and were constantly going back
and forth. Their advice was wanted
because they were the high priests
of a new era. They had developed
a conviction about what govern-
ment plus science could do
together. They had a feeling that
nothing was more important than
national security. We got all that
from them during our apprentice-
ship. We watched them make
choices on how to spend their
time, and they always spent it for
the country. Each one of us came
away from those relationships feel-
ing that the country came first.
(U//FOUO)

Before the war, science was sup-
ported by private money. The
Palomar telescope was built with
private money. The Mount Wilson
telescopes were built with private
money. Ernie Lawrence's cyclo-
trons at Berkeley were built with
private money. There were no R&D
contracts, except those that kept a
couple of airplane companies going
with development programs. We
learned that lesson for the first time
in our country's history. After the
war, we said, "Look, we have got a
good thing going here, let's keep it
going." So the National Science
Foundation was bom, the Office of
Naval Research, all the funding at

Lincoln Laboratory, Los Alamos,
Livermore, and so on. We said,
"Look, we have a winning formula
here of extraordinary technologists
plus government funding." And it
really worked. (U//FOUO)

I believe that game plan has pretty
well run its course. What started
out as a fantastic adventure has
gradually become trench warfare
involving procurement regulations.
Grants are becoming just another
paper translator and doing things
by the numbers. So I think a lot of
the excitement has been lost. Men
of good will and great ability once
did amazing things together at
incredible speeds. That does not
describe the defense industry
today. Where you do see that today
is in Silicon Valley and the soft-
ware firms. They have that kind of
verve and acceleration, but the gov-
ernment is not part of that.
(U//FOUO)

In a way, I believe this golden
moment of partnership between the
government and science has grown
tired. The Agency was always a lit-
tle different. It worked with Kelly
Johnson at Lockheed and others in
the way things had been done dur-
ing the war. That is why people
wanted to work with the Agency,
because it was a carryover from an
era that had been lost at DoD.
(U//FOUO)

Reflections on the Agency (U)

After leaving the Agency, Wheelon
joined Hughes Aircraft, where he
eventually became Chairman and
Chief Executive Officer. He also
served as a member of the

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President's Foreign Intelligence
Advisory Board from 1982 to 1988.
(U//FOUO)

When you go to work for the
Agency, you have to admit that you
are not going to have it all. Never
have a yacht. You are not going to
have your own jet. But there is a
camaraderie and a sense of com-
mitment and dedication and being
with other people who are really
superior to those on the outside.
(U//FOUO)

44

I was really spoiled by
the Agency. Spoiled by its
integrity. My time at CIA

was just the best four
years of my life.

99

I was really spoiled by the Agency.
Spoiled by its integrity. I had a
good deal of trouble adjusting
when I left the Agency. Not being
able to depend on people. Always
having to recalibrate. My time at
CIA was just the best four years of

my life. It was the highlight of my
life. Not before or since have I had
that kind of feeling of commitment
or bonding or confidence in my
colleagues. I simply never worked
with such a fine group of men and
women. (U//FOUO)

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